The Energy Secretary, Claire Coutinho, warned recently that Labour’s plans to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 could lead to blackouts. It was a bit rich, given that her own party’s plans will have exactly the same effect, the only difference being five years later.
Unfortunately, neither party seems to have any understanding of how our energy system works, nor any policy for how to keep the lights on when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.
As energy experts know, there are often times during the year when wind power generation is at extremely low levels in the U.K. These wind lulls can last for weeks on end in winter, often cutting wind generation to less than 5% of capacity.
Solar power is no better. In mid-winter, output averages below 2% of capacity, and none is available at the peak demand periods of breakfast and early evening.
Reliance on imported power from Europe also carries with it an extreme risk. Not least because wind lulls around the U.K. usually mean similar conditions on the other side of the North Sea. Politicians who waffle on about energy security are happy to play Russian roulette when it comes to getting electricity from Europe.
National Grid projections say that peak demand for electricity could double to 100GW by 2035, thanks to extra demand from EVs, heat pumps and so on. Decarbonisation will mean that we will only have around 10GW of dispatchable and baseload capacity by then, mainly nuclear, biomass and hydro – power that we can rely on day in and day out. On top of that, we may have 20GW of interconnectors to Europe.
Clearly, we cannot rely on wind and solar to bridge the gap, no matter how many wind and solar farms we build. Twice nothing is still nothing!
In February I wrote an open letter to Claire Coutinho, following one such windless spell, asking her what plans she had to maintain the supply of electricity in 2035, once all the coal and gas power plants had been shut down. A colleague of mine, who happened to be one of her constituents, forwarded my letter to her.
We received the usual bland reply, assuring us that the Government was working on plans to provide low carbon alternatives, including nuclear, tidal power, hydrogen and storage. Her letter exposed the shocking naivety of those in charge of our energy policy.
So we replied with another letter, pointing out that none of the solutions would be available at scale in 10 years time. Hydrogen, for instance, would need hundreds of billions spending on electrolysers, distribution networks, seasonal storage and a new fleet of hydrogen burning power stations. On top of that, there simply would not be enough wind and solar capacity to provide the power needed to produce the hydrogen in bulk.
Carbon capture, which has still not been proven at scale, would also require a new fleet of gas power stations, as most existing ones cannot be modified. There are no plans, however, to begin building these.
As for energy storage, this is a pipe dream. Batteries are only capable of storing enough electricity for an hour or so’s use. They are useful for short term balancing of the grid, on a minute-to-minute basis, but will be useless when we go days on end with little wind power.
None of these “solutions” will be ready in 10 years time, never mind the five years proposed by the Labour Party.
The only way we can prevent blackouts is to start building new gas power stations now, and lots of them. We currently have around 30GW of gas power, but many plants will shut in the next few years, either because of old age or because they are not economically viable.
At a minimum we will need 50GW of new capacity, along with a plan to keep existing plants open as long as possible.
All of this was explained to Coutinho. It was therefore a great surprise to receive this reply from her Department. (My highlights).
In short, everything I had said was correct. It simply is not possible to shut down all coal and gas power stations and hope to rely on renewables. And now even the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero has acknowledged the fact.
So why did Claire Coutinho not admit this in her letter? Does she not understand how our energy sector works? Is she just spouting the propaganda fed to her by a small clique of advisers? Or does she know that she was talking nonsense, but didn’t dare admit that the Government’s decarbonisation plans are impossible to achieve?
Let’s be absolutely clear about the implications of the Castro letter. It drives a coach and horses through the Net Zero plans of both the Tories and Labour.
It is no longer possible for either party to pretend that we can decarbonise our power grid in the timescales they propose. Neither will it be possible at all without massively expensive alternatives, such as carbon capture, hydrogen and energy storage.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.